What a great explanation! Since it is already a rather sensitive organ, doesn't it also slightly help with detecting changes in atmospheric pressure, helping especially in constrained spaces to find passages and sense movement? Yet another reason why dwarwes prefer to be underground! Go to Comment

Curious idea, but I would think having such a fibrous membrane for exchanging metabolic gases would render them much more vulnerable to airborne toxins and contaminants, like the toxic fumes and chemicals found underground. Of course that would be meaningless assuming they had much more impressive blood filtering systems than normal, which would be a robust liver I suppose. Which leads to the legendary stoicism of the dwarves, and their resistance to alcohol and poison.

Ah right. When I say "four-chambered" I mean "different number of chambers, not four" haha

The double stomach came from watching animal programs last night, where the langurs of Cambodia have an extra stomach full of fancy bacteria that help them break down the cellulose of leaves. Anyway, was basically contemplating Dwarven adaptations to the underground. How about this? An fish-like organ that regulates pressure/oxygen/something.. :P

Okay I will bite; the mammalian heart has four chambers. So if a dwarf has a four chambered heart, that fact alone would not distinguish it from a normal mammalian heart. So when you mentioned four-chambered heart and a double stomach I assumed you made an error with regard to the number of chambers in the heart. Thus I thought it would be funny to mock you by lamely suggesting that perhaps what ever planet you called home had two or three chambered hearts. Got it. I was wrong. It was not funny.

Indeed, I imagine beard veins with selective filters that could store CO2 saturated hemoglobin or recycle CO bonded RBCs. I also thought a exterior lung tissue surrounded by protective beard hair would be better for breathing in areas with lots of particulates that could damage lung tissue but would be filtered by the beard hair. Of course the chin gills would be less efficient than the lungs but it might make the difference in pinch.

I have a whole rant on this is my unfinished sequel to "A Dwarf on the Water". The new piece was to follow my nascent dwarven philosopher/teamster Gorn as he got on the wrong side of the God of fear. It was titled "Dwen and the Art of Wagon Maintenance", but as it turns out I just don't know enough about wagons.

Firstly, I have to admit that I read this a bit ad-hoc with breaks in between and I don't know whether this skewed my score. I like how this story ends and yet it seems a little abrupt for me. What I meant by this was that I got too carried away for the Viking/pirate feel of Akribus throughout the story and I wasn't quite prepared when he turned freedom fighter at the end for the sake of his son and all those lore of the Sun and Moon (I like lore usually but here there's something about all those lore that feels a little off to me for unknown reason although rationally I don't have argument with them since they are part of the lore for the sword) Go to Comment